葉劉淑儀

English

Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, GBM, GBS, JP (born 24 August 1950), is a Hong Kong politician. She graduated from the University of Hong Kong with a first-class honours BA in English, earned an MLitt at the University of Glasgow and an MSc in management at Stanford University. In 1975 she joined the Hong Kong government as an Administrative Officer, beginning a civil service career of more than thirty years across districts, international trade and security, and was promoted to the top administrative grade in 1996. That year she became Director of Immigration, the first woman to head a disciplined service. In July 1998 she was appointed Secretary for Security, the first woman to hold the post; after the ministerial accountability system was introduced in 2002 she became one of fourteen principal officials and a member of the Executive Council. The disciplined services she led numbered about 63,000, roughly a third of the civil service. In 2003 controversy over her promotion of the National Security (Legislative Provisions) Bill led her to resign on 16 July, after which she studied in the United States. She returned in 2006 and founded the Savantas Policy Institute on 18 July. She lost a 2007 Legislative Council by-election for Hong Kong Island to Anson Chan, but won a seat in 2008 and was re-elected in 2012 and 2016, founding the New People's Party on 9 January 2011 and becoming its chairperson. Appointed a non-official Executive Council member in October 2012, she stepped down in December 2016 to prepare a Chief Executive bid; she entered the 2017 race but withdrew for lack of nominations, and was reappointed to the Executive Council that July. Elected to the seventh Legislative Council for Hong Kong Island West in December 2021, she became Convenor of the Executive Council's non-official members on 1 July 2022, the first woman to hold that post.